


Fitting In

by pherryt



Category: Supernatural
Genre: 12x02 coda, Mary find the Supernatural books, Mary finds fanfiction, Men of Letters Bunker, Sfb
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-28
Updated: 2016-10-28
Packaged: 2018-08-27 13:39:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,077
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8403778
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pherryt/pseuds/pherryt
Summary: Mary's still trying to reconcile the boys she loved with the men before her. To do that, she needs insight. So she turns first to Johns journal, before asking Sam for a crash course on how to use the internet.





	

**Author's Note:**

> I had the idea for this about a week ago, and it was supposed to be focused on Mary using the internet and finding the books and fanfiction, and I wrote (most of) this up while waiting to see the new episode last night (and after I saw the promo for 12x03, obviously). But then I watched it and the ending broke me and I no longer know where i was going with this. SO...here it is.
> 
> I couldn't even come up with a title for this that i liked. my original plans for titles no longer feel like they fit.  
> I'm...not even sure what to tag this with.

Mary slowly closed the laptop she'd borrowed from Sam, her mind reeling. It had been a week since they'd rescued her youngest son, and they'd hunkered down in the bunker after Dean had declared that everyone "needed a god damn break."

"Sammy and me, and Cas, we've all been going nonstop for the past few _months_ and we just need a breather. There's no big bad on the horizon this time, except for the British MOL, and I think we can afford to take a small break. Sam needs to recover from….and you need time to adjust and Cas needs…" he paused, leaving whatever the angel needed as a mystery. "And I'm not leaving any of you alone. If something happens, we'll contact another hunter and send them after it. We _need_ this." Dean stabbed down at the table for emphasis.

Cautiously, Mary had agreed. Only to watch her eldest's face drop when Castiel announced _his_ plans to _disregard_ the plan. Dean hadn't included himself on the list of people who needed this downtime, but she could see just as plain as day that he did. And he'd wanted – needed - to keep them all by his side as he did.  The man looked nearly heartbroken as he and the angel discussed it, Dean's voice almost harsh as he tried to get Castiel to stay.

"I can't. Dean, I made a mess, I need to go and fix it."

"Yeah, but, Cas, we've all made our share of messes and it won't do anybody any good if we all don't take a step back for a few minutes." The angel tilted his head and looked at Dean questioningly.

"I've been here since we returned yesterday. That is more than a few minutes." Dean threw his hands up in the air even as Mary thought she saw the twitching of an exasperated smile on his face.

"Fine. Just, promise me you'll be careful. The other angels aren't happy with you. Lucifer is dangerous and who knows what Crowley or Rowena are up to. Just…do me a favor and check in with us, okay?"

"Of course." They stood there for a few minutes after that, just staring and Mary made her escape. Somehow, this had all felt personal and that she was an intruder here on their lives. Well, that was actually pretty close to the truth. In fact, despite Castiel's belief that he didn't fit in, it was very obvious that he did. She was, truly, the only outsider here. An outsider in her own family. With a heavy heart, she'd returned to her room and once again picked up John Winchesters journal.

It was a heartbreaking read. She could see the man changing before her eyes, despite having no physical form to see. How he'd fallen into grief with her death, how it had hardened him in ways she'd never wanted to see. How he'd become a hunter and then did the very worst thing she could think of. He'd turned their children into hunters. And Mary could read between the lines. She'd had a lot of practice at it in her own training to become the thing she hated. Her kids had had no childhood to speak of. Dean especially had lost that chance. It was plain to see that John had heaped responsibilities on the boy that should never have been on his young shoulders.

The journal mostly talked of monsters, of hunting, but it detailed when and where and it was easy to see how often the three of them moved about. How often the kids had been left alone – alone! When you knew there were monsters out there, when you were actively hunting them! Such a risk he'd taken that the monsters wouldn't hunt them back, hit him where it hurt by going after unprotected children – how often they'd been pulled out of school to go on yet another hunt, make another move. The dates she read for _one year alone_ must have meant _at least_ a dozen schools. In one year. She hadn't had the heart to do the math. And still Sam had gone to Stanford. Despite everything thrown at him and though she had no real place to be, she was proud of her boy.

Still, the journal was written by John, and aside from corrections to his lore, the boys had added nothing to it. The word "solitary" that was originally written under the sketch of a Vetala –and who knew John had such a gift? – had been heavily crossed out and replaced with the words "hunts in pairs/mated pairs" in red, underscored several times, as if it had been a hard lesson learned.

But aside from that, nothing. Nothing added to the journal, making the last decade or so of her son's lives blank. Idly, she wondered if they'd kept their own journals and she wondered at the insight she could get if she could only get her hands on them.  Sure, she'd gotten a broad stroke picture of the boys in their younger years, but she had a feeling she'd need to ask Dean for more on Sam's firsts, since John had never bothered to record anything like that. But since it seemed Dean had done the raising, maybe he remembered. She felt a deep sadness knowing that a lot of Dean's firsts were lost.

So she'd learned a lot, but it wasn't enough. She needed more if she was going to reconcile these two grown men with the babies she'd known. And she knew they were holding back. Holding back because, as Dean had told the angel, they were afraid of overwhelming her. And she wasn't going to lie, it _was_ a little overwhelming, all this change, all this history, but if she was going to find a place for herself, if they were to be a family again, there couldn't be secrets. Those secrets had torn apart her family once before, she couldn't allow it to happen again. She had to learn who these men were. And it was obvious that pushing was going to quickly put them – or at least Dean – on the defensive.

That's when she asked Sam to show her how to use the laptop. He'd easily obliged, showing her the basics, writing down instructions for different things, introducing her to Google and Google search and showing her how to refine her searches. Then he'd hesitated.

"Just, okay, if you're going to do Google searches on, well, whatever, do me – all of us – a favor, and stay away from anything in the search results that look like they come from these places." He grabbed a piece of paper and quickly jotted down the names of a few sites and their urls. "The internet is an _amazing_ tool, seriously,  but you shouldn't trust everything you find there.  It has a plethora of knowledge literally at your fingertips but there's a lot of misinformation out there as well. And not all of it is out of malice." He shrugged. "People are wrong all the time, and people made the internet so…Oh! And some of the um…misinformation you could find are…" She could see him holding back a wince. "Apparently, a form of entertainment."

"Right. Thank you Sam." He gave her an awkward little nod and made a shuffling step back, then another.

"Right, so, okay. If you uh, need anything…"

"Your room is just two doors down. Yes Sam, I know where to find you. I'll be fine. Thank you." She didn't even have to force the smile this time as she looked at the endearingly awkward and earnest young man before her. How someone so tall could look so…lost and adorable…she wasn't sure. He nodded at her again with a nervous smile and retreated from her room, closing the door behind him like she preferred.

She turned to face the laptop with determination and cracked her knuckles. Right. She had 33 years to catch up on. Time to get to work.

A couple of hours and several searches later had led to a lot of frustration. Was she _doing_ this right? She'd entered in the names of her sons and the results had been strange. There were clips of them from some murder spree, reports of their (multiple) deaths, but other than that, nothing on the Winchesters that were identifiable as her sons. And while she didn't know either of them very well, she knew enough about the supernatural not to take the murder spree at face value. Who knew what had really happened? Well, _they_ did, but would they tell her?

Moving on, she'd tried searching for Castiel as well, and that had brought in completely different results. Lore about Cassiel the Angel, and the dissertation of some _body_ from some prestigious school she cared nothing about, which discussed the religious impacts of the change from Cassiel to Castiel and what had caused the shift.

While, as a hunter, it would have been a fascinating read, ultimately, it had meant nothing in the grand scheme of things. She wanted more recent history. Both times, her searches had popped up with an abundance of results – all to sites that Sam told her to stay away from. She had initially been willing to listen to him since, after all, he had more experience with these things than she did. But as search after search netted her nothing, she grew more frustrated.

Briefly abandoning her search of the boys, she decided to try looking into the hunter network. She entered in old code words and hoped they hadn't changed in almost 40 years. After all, she may have died 33 years ago, but she'd gotten out of the hunting world since before Dean had even been born.

Those results were slightly better; the problem was sifting through it all. They were buried in and amongst the perfectly normal things the code words had been based off of. What she did get though, didn't paint a pretty picture. The decimation of the network was clear. No wonder her boys looked like they were running around on empty, they and a handful of others were all that was left of the massive network she was used to working with.  It was as clear to her that the Brits were partially right, things had to change. But she did _not_ trust them.

Finally, ready to try again, Mary went back to her original search. Hesitating, she clicked one of the forbidden links at random. There were just too many results to make an educated guess. Instantly, she brightened. The click had led her to a place run by someone called BeckyWinchester176 and claimed to have the real scoop on Sam and Dean. There was even a picture of Sam in a tux. This looked very promising.

Delving into the site, she learned that there was a series of books called Supernatural based on her boys' lives. The books were out of print, but Becky had made it possible to read them on the internet.  Or, at least, to find them easier.  Not being internet savvy, Mary wasn't sure which, but then she didn't much care either, as long as she could find it. All of this included, the unknown Becky said, the previously _unpublished_ books about how Mary's sons stopped the Apocalypse with the help of an Angel who had rebelled from Heaven.

Well, that explained a few things.

The site was meticulously organized, and she clicked on the first book. It didn't take long for her to become horribly saddened. Dean had told her Sam had gone to Stanford and the story opened there. She had obviously found the right thing, but oh even the first few lines were so unbelievably foreboding. She knew already that it wasn't ending well, not with all the hints Dean had already let drop but had refused to elaborate on.

The hope Sam had had, the love he'd held for this Jessica, a woman who was so obviously no longer in his life.  The pure loneliness and deep seated insecurities that had driven Dean to find his brother when their father disappeared, unable to go it alone.  So much hidden behind that façade of his that the book revealed. Two equally broken little boys clinging to each other as everything around them went to shit again and again.

And all of it was her fault. She had to stifle the tears and step away from the laptop to compose herself. Her deal with the yellow eyed demon had been the catalyst for _all_ of this. Her boys could have had a normal life…then again, John would have been dead. There wouldn't have been a Dean, much less a Sam. And despite everything, she knew she never regretted her babies, even if she couldn't yet recognize who they had become.

Wiping her eyes, taking a deep breath, she once again turned back to the laptop. She had a _lot_ of reading to do. She'd better get started.

Days later, with infrequent breaks to get food, or assure her sons she was still alive, Mary finally finished reading all of the books that were available. The last one was called Swan Song which ended _years_ ago, and now she was left with even more questions than before. There were no more books available though.

A small link at the bottom caught her eye. She looked at it. It seemed to be pointing to yet another one of the sites she'd been warned off of. Once again she hesitated, but then she pushed forward. BeckyWinchester176 hadn't steered her wrong yet.

With one click, she was sucked in.

And so it was a week after rescuing Sam that she softly closed the laptop and made her way into the kitchen in a daze. It was obvious after just a few stories, that this Archive place held mostly _fictional_ stories about her boys and their angel. But there was something in those stories that seemed to hold a grain of truth. They'd been fascinating, when all was said and done. And, well, some of them were frankly disturbing - why would anyone write about…? She shuddered and tried not to think about it.

She shuffled into the kitchen to catch Dean at the coffeepot. He looked up, startled and wary when she approached, still unused to her being in the bunker, especially with as much as she'd been holed up in her own room. It was obvious that he'd been trying to give her the space she had seemingly wanted, but it was equally obvious that that had been difficult for him to do.

"Hey Mom, what's up? You all right?"

Not giving him an answer, Mary threw her arms around him and felt him stiffen, just as he had the first time they'd hugged, even though it had really been him that had initiated it. Slowly, the man who'd once been a child that would do anything for a hug, relaxed and hugged her back.  The things she'd read, the things he'd been through…it was more than any hunter she'd ever heard about. How he and Sam were still alive, still _sane_ , she had no earthly idea. But she thought a great deal of thanks might go to Castiel.

"Mom? Are you all right?" Dean asked again, tentatively this time, as the hug lasted longer than any hug he could ever remember. He heard a sniffle even as she nodded. Then a huffed out laugh before she contradicted herself with one word.

"No." He tightened his arms around her in response. She took a deep, shaky breath and let it out. "If your father was here, I'd be kicking his ass from here to Kingdom Come." Dean drew back in surprise. Every word he'd heard from his mother about John had been filled with love and sadness, not this, this…quiet rage.

"I'm sorry, what?"

"I read his journal." Dean sucked in a breath. Shit, Sammy had given mom dad's journal? "And I read the Supernatural books." His eyes went wide with panic. They didn't own any copies of those. How the hell had she found them??? "And then something called fan fiction." Dean's brain screeched to a halt.

"Oh god…mom."

"I get that the stories that are…fan fiction?...aren't actually real, but Dean, some of it actually made sense." She pulled back. "And I know I'm still missing _a lot_ , so I'd like you and Sammy to fill in the rest of the gaps. I don't want to read any more fan fiction. Not that it isn't good, but I need the real facts and by God, I _will_ have them."

"Yeah, well, first off, don't call him God. He prefers Chuck. That's weird fact of the day number one." Dean tried for a light tone, but his mind was whirling. He finally let go and sighed, running a hand through his hair and down the back of his neck. "Fine. Let's go find Sammy."

They spent even more time telling her their history. She could tell when things were getting glossed over and she resolved to ask Castiel the next time she saw him. After all, one thing was perfectly clear. He was a major part of her boys' lives, and without him…so much would have been different. And while he made mistakes - she wasn't blind to them, not by a long shot - he'd done what he thought necessary. Just like a hunter.

When all was said and done, with every word out of the tired, world weary men before her, she became more certain than ever that Castiel the angel was a Winchester. And that the pining between Dean and Cas was _very_ real. When she had first read the theories in the fake stories, she'd shuddered at the thought, but when she took the time to dwell on it she realized that, love was love. And a hunter that could find love was rare.  And anyway, she sort of liked the awkward little angel who had sacrificed everything for her boys over and over again. She supposed she could get used to the fact that he was a male.

 Life was too short to get hung up on things like that anyway. She nearly snorted at herself as the thought struck her because, after all, who would know better than her?


End file.
